Sticker shock on Obamacare
There are a lot of surprised people in California now that more Obamacare details are coming out:
In California, 1.9 million people buy plans on the open market, according to officials with Covered California, the state’s new health insurance exchange. And many of them are steaming mad.
“There’s going to be a number of people surprised” by their bills, said Jonathan Wu, a co-founder of ValuePenguin, a consumer finance website. “The upper-middle class are the people who are essentially being asked to foot the bill, and that’s true across the country.”
Covered California spokesman Dana Howard maintained that in public presentations the exchange has always made clear that there will be winners and losers under Obamacare.
“Some people will see an increase who are already on the individual market purchasing insurance,” he said, “but most people will not.”…
Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level — the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn’t realize they would rise so much.
“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”
Raise your hand if you think Dana Howard has much of a clue how many people will actually see premiums go up and how many will see them go down. Also, the levels that premium payments are set this year are not necessarily what they will be next year, or the next—and those levels will to some measure depend on how many people sign up for Obamacare and how many people opt to pay the penalty instead—another unknown.
But it’s that last quote from Vinson that seems to encapsulate a common liberal mindset on Obamacare—or on government-funded benefits in general—that so infuriates conservatives. Who doesn’t “want people to have health care”? But the real question—and the real difference between the approaches of conservatives and liberals, inflammatory rhetoric aside—is how such a thing would be paid for, and especially whether it is possible to do so without putting an undue burden on the wage-earning tax-paying public.
Vinson, like so many people, uses the term “health care” to mean “health insurance,” but let’s gloss over that and stipulate that most people couldn’t afford the former (particularly if a major health problem were to arise) without having the latter. Vinson probably isn’t saying that she didn’t expect to pay for her own health insurance. She is saying that she expected to pay only for her own health insurance, not for the health insurance of those others she “of course” wants covered.
So the trillion-dollar question is: who did she expect would pay for their insurance?
It couldn’t have been the poor themselves who would pay. And if it wasn’t someone like Vinson, whose income clocks in at four times the poverty level—who would it have been? A good guess would be: people who are richer than Vinson.
It’s an interesting phenomenon that’s not at all uncommon among liberals; call it the “do it to Julia, not to me” phenomenon. In this case, something that is recognized as unfair and/or unwanted for oneself is acceptable if the responsibility is put on others instead, those people who for some reason are thought to deserve it more or to be able to absorb it better. But if it’s unfair for the first group, why is it suddenly fair for the second?
Perhaps some people such as Vinson haven’t thought it through even to that extent. Perhaps their thinking stops at the “Of course, I want people to have health care” point. That makes them good people in their own eyes: nice people, compassionate people, unlike those who disagree with them and are imagined to be mean people who do not “want people to have health care.” The idea that conservatives actually might also “want people to have health care” and yet be more realistic than liberals about the costs and benefits of such an undertaking, and might have different ideas about the best way to effect the greatest amount of health care for the greatest number of people, seems to be a foreign notion to many who think as Vinson does.
But hope springs eternal, even for them:
“I’m not against Obamacare,” Waschura said. “It’s just the initial shock. I’m holding out hope that there will be a correction over a handful of years.”
There’ll probably be a “correction” all right. It just might not be in the direction Waschura assumes.
[NOTE: Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection.]
I thought everything from the government is free.
Ah, I can at least enjoy this.
The totalitarian regime’s boot on your face is also free, btw.
Double free for your kid too.
“Covered California spokesman Dana Howard maintained that in public presentations the exchange has always made clear that there will be winners and losers under Obamacare.”
But the losers were always going to be the other guy. “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that man behind that tree.”
“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”
WELL, WHO THE H#LL . . . [catches self] . . . [exhales] . . . never mind.
Neo: “Perhaps their thinking stops at the “Of course, I want people to have health care” point. That makes them good people in their own eyes: nice people, compassionate people, unlike those who disagree with them and are imagined to be mean people who do not “want people to have health care.”
Yes, this is true insight into how so many liberal minds work. I hear such nonsense all the time. There is really no way to educate such closed minds.
I’m not sure that the “sticker shock” of Obamacare will educate most; they will still find a way to rationalize in their minds that somehow or other those evil Republicans have messed things up, or perhaps it is the greedy corporations. Or any number of other excuses rather than the truth.
Y’know, if there really were infinite resources, *all* people of sound mind and good will would favor quality health care for everybody. For left-leaners to think otherwise is a severe insult to realists’ integrities.
Some of us grapple with things as they really are, and others of us dream of things as those others wish them to be [in something of a reversal of that old RFK (?) speech line].
“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” Nope, Johnny, you sure haven’t been. Margaret Thatcher warned of the time when you run out of other people’s money, but Johnny was living in Noo Yawk by then. And now, it’s finally hitting the U.S. fan.
Schadenfreude, sweet sweet schadenfreude.
‘m glad I’ll be back in Germany by Nov. There I am covered by a private insurance company and I don’t have to worry about Obamacare.
Vinson can be classified a zombie, an Obamacan. Thus “thinking” is perhaps too high a level function for people to consider valid at this time.
Yes, Expat, living and working overseas have their benefits at times. This is one of them. I’ll be back in Asia myself next week. And 0bamadrones like Dana Howard, Cindy Vinson, and Tom Waschura can ESAD.
The optimists among us may contend that we are witnessing the birthing pains of untold numbers of conservatives in a fashion similar to the young person receiving their first paycheck and seeing the extent of the deductions. One can hope!
Lurch, 3:33 pm — “The optimists among us may contend that we are witnessing the birthing pains of untold numbers of conservatives . . . .”
That’s pretty optimistic. First, they have to negotiate the hurdles of -1- the mainstream media, still carrying the disaster-in-chief’s water and demonizing the Darth Vader Party, and -2- the “with-it” culture, who still insist, in so many ways, on pee cee collectivism as The Way Of Life to which we all aspire, once we’re sufficiently evolved.
Agreed, “one can hope”, but speaking for moi, I need hope with a cold, wet dose of reality. Maybe — *maybe* — the “birthing pains” of cultural lefties with a heretofore absent grip on reality.
Mencken rules and they are all about to be in the “Getting it good and hard” zone. No sticker shock there.
Sadly, this is only the beginning. As economic pressures heat up due to the unintended consequences of liberalism, such as less general consumption elsewhere due to higher costs of health insurance, there will be less jobs, less sales tax collections, less income tax collections, resulting in the raising of taxes, resulting in less jobs, resulting in less revenues, resulting….. Yes, that was a purposeful run-on sentence.
In addition, the number that I’ve heard bandied about is that Obamacare will cost 1.6 TRILLion dollars over the next 10 years. So on top of the premiums paid by the haves, there is another $1.6T of cost elsewhere? What is it? Bureaucracy and tax dollars spent on subsidizing the have nots, correct?
So people should rightly use the following equation to add up the true cost of their health care: X + Y = Z. Where X equals premiums paid and Y equals the individual portion of various income and other taxes extracted from the American economy and Z equals the biggest screw over ever just so you can turn your head and cough “for free”.
“So the trillion-dollar question is: who did she expect would pay for their insurance?
It couldn’t have been the poor themselves who would pay. And if it wasn’t someone like Vinson…who would it have been? A good guess would be:” Someone else.
1. That is all of Liberalism in a few sentences, except for one thing….
2. The fact that that attitude is immoral, unethical, unjust, wrong, damaging, and immature, and doubly so because the liberal holds it to be the opposite thing.
Until we manage to put the argument against Liberalism in moral terms, we will fail to convince them. If we don’t show them they are being unjust and are hurting people, things will never change.
Liberal “Health Care Policy” means less health, and less care, at twice the price and half the liberty.
There are traditionally five or six Principles of Justice. One of them is rights; another is responsibilities. Rights without responsibilities is not justice. It’s hell.
“…If we don’t show them they are being unjust and are hurting people, things will never change…”
Sorry, Mike, that won’t get it done. Liberals don’t care that people get hurt, only that their own intentions are good. It’s all about themselves, you see, not about those that they’re supposedly trying to “help”. This is why shaming them never works.
It’s not just about financing. There are three critical issues. First, resources are finitely available and accessible. Second, conflating non-contributory and contributory entitlements will sponsor corruption. Well, it is also about financing. Third, while Obamacare marginally increases subsidies, it also increases differential costs, and preserves the regular inflation of total costs.
Oh, and it normalizes elective abortion, and generally increases dissociation of risk.
– – –
Obama said that he would administer with a scalpel, but since coming to office he has done nothing but hatchet jobs. Perhaps he only favors scalpels in the hands of abortionists for hire.
Reid is pro-choice, but he has demonstrated and stated his contempt for individual choice and the democratic process.
Pelosi demanded that we submit to learn the consequences of Obamacare. Democrats have an unsavory legacy of favoring involuntary exploitation.
Why do the vast majority of Democrats oppose planned government? Why do they oppose the right to choose?
Surely everyone has noticed this tragic irony.
Dismember it. Vacuum it. Flush it. The clump of burdensome and unwanted policies and regulations known as Obamacare. Not the clump of cells known as Barack, Harry, Nancy, etc.
That said, death to omnibus legislation. The government should not be permitted to exploit people’s labor without accountability. It should not be permitted to run trillion dollar deficits and other liberal policies which devalue capital and labor, individual dignity, and even human life.
Agreed, “one can hope”, but speaking for moi, I need hope with a cold, wet dose of reality. Maybe – *maybe* – the “birthing pains” of cultural lefties with a heretofore absent grip on reality.
The situation of urban blacks is a thousand times worse than white Libs. Have the blacks been “reborn”? Have they even been allowed to be birthed by Planned Parenthood?
So if they haven’t woken up, if they haven’t broken their slave shackles… what makes anyone think they can break the shackles of their lefty family member, their Democrat neighbors, that stranger on the street that calls himself an Obamacan, not an American?
Theories at least need some kind of backing, a story of previous success. The first civil war failed to bring the benefits of equality to blacks under the Democrat heel. We have yet have a fully successful story against Democrats.
While I see no need to blame the optimists or those who would take mercy on the evil alliance, I do have to tell them that while they are busy “convincing” the Left that they need to change their ways, what are you all going to do about this?
http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/obamas-america-white-army-soldier-murdered-was-called-cracker-by-suspects/
Is convincing a “Leftist” going to bring back that young man?
When will the evils of the Left become America’s evil, our evils, because somehow a majority keeps voting in evil?
Obamacare is a wonderful example of the socialist fantasy that we can all live high on the hog at everybody elses expense.
Ynarsakar,
That doesn’t count as real murder for Liberals, because Liberals do not really think blacks are human beings in the way they think they are human beings.
If a white person kills a black person, since in the Liberal psyche the white is supperior, then the white person is guilty of murder and cruelty – not feeling sufficiently sorry for the black person.
The reasons blacks are down is because whites don’t feel sufficiently sorry for them. It is entirely within the power of the superior race to make life better, or worse, for the inferior race.
This is how the liberal really sees it, whether they say so or not.
The proof is shown where liberals go ballistic if a white male kills a black person – there is hardly a worse possible crime – and says absolutely nothing when a black male kills a white person.
The one must be racially motivated hate. The other is inferior animals just lashing out like inferior animals would.
There is no such thing as racial superiority or inferiority, at least according to the long tradition in justice and the likes of Martin Luther King. Why liberals hold onto the theory of white superiority is beyond me….but they do.
In reality black men and white men have way more in common that what divides us, first among them being the male part. Liberals have been in a virtual “War against men” for 50 years now, and it is succeeding beyond their wildest dream – seen by the fact that there are so few real men around these days compared to past times. Look at the WW II Vets knocking down the barriers for example. That is what real men would do. Look at the “males” who are stock characters on TV and in commercials.
Whose fault is that? I have to say it ultimately les with us, the men. We let it happen, black, white, latino, asian, whatever.
Why? We got no models no more. Where did they go? A whole other question.
If whites considered whites superior, they wouldn’t care about blacks being killed, because it would be killing a dog.
Bad maybe, but not a crime of humanity.
So your explanation is internally consistent, Mike.
You are not entirely wrong, but your theory does not match all the existing situations and scenarios.
To the Leftist alliance, there are humans and there are livestock, slaves, sex slaves, and tools.
If you are a believer, you may graduate to a user, master, or owner. Thus to the Left, the idea that normal Americans can go out and see the ocean, memorials, and various other places the Regime’s aristocrats think they own, is like the idea that a dog doesn’t need its owner’s permission to go outside. Or that a pig raised on a farm for its pork, can sell itself to some other human owner and remove itself from the ownership of the human.
To the Leftist alliance, there are humans, them, and everyone else are either tools or livestock. Slaves were counted as a partial vote for representation purposes, so being able to vote doesn’t really change anything there. A slave with a partial vote and a slave with a full vote, is still a slave. He votes whatever he is told to vote, by his owners.
So no, I can’t agree that the Leftist alliance actually believes in some kind of racial superiority doctrine. Or at least, they once believed it but have refined it beyond the KKK’s efforts, and Robert Byrd’s efforts. Instead of rendering their class superior, they have rendered their class human.
Thus a white patriot being killed by a black man is like your neighbor’s dog eating your cat. You blame your neighbor, not the dog most of the time. The Left doesn’t have complete control over white patriots, but they do have super control over blacks. So when their pets do something wrong, they don’t blame their pets, but blame you. And if your pet does something to them or their property, it’s all your fault.
To the Left, whites and blacks are not citizens, they are not human, they are just livestock. They are tools to be used and owned.
Those with power can be said to be human, like their GOP opponents in DC, but once stripped of that power, they are demoted down to a lower class.
The Left’s class warfare is the same as Vick’s fighting dog tournaments. It’s fun for them. It brings in the money. It’s enough.
The Leftist utopian concepts of stopping war and human vices, has progressed to the point where they have concluded that the only way to stop war is to stop people from feeling the emotions that drive war. Love. The desire to protect your family or nation. Al of that must be eliminated and replaced with sex, obedience to the sexual slave master, and various other conditioning methods and brainwashing methods.
When they say “we have to stop the hate”, what they mean in practice is that only humans are allowed to hate, and the fact there are too many humans that can’t be controlled is why war and poverty exists. Thus we need a Ruling Elite, a class born to rule, that is human and able to control everyone else. Everyone else will be controllable if then we get rid of their right to hate or love, get rid of their emotions, and demote them from humanity to a mere animal or inanimate (sexual) object. If in the process they train attack dogs and animals that kill, then that’s useful for the utopia. They need animal allies and loyalists to help control and fight off other animal threats.
So what’s the point of trying to convince the Leftist regime that you are right? First you must convince them you are “human” to begin with, their equals.
So your explanation is internally consistent, Mike.
Correction, internally inconsistent.
Aren’t we talking about income redistribution here? Obama has made it clear that is his objective. Too bad so few have noticed.
“. . . if it wasn’t someone like Vinson, whose income clocks in at four times the poverty level–who would it have been [to pay for the healthcare program]? A good guess would be: people who are richer than Vinson.”
This is the classic core of liberal class warfare. Always make people feel like victims; always have them looking in envy up the economic ladder at those above them. Then those same people will never notice that there are people below them looking in envy up the economic ladder at them.
““I’m not against Obamacare,” Waschura said. “It’s just the initial shock. I’m holding out hope that there will be a correction over a handful of years.”
Can you say dumbass? Sure you can, I knew you could .
It’s just the progressive cycle:
1) Progressives promise rainbows and unicorns through a harebrained scheme which has obvious and inevitable negative consequences and cannot possibly work well in the real world;
2) Conservatives voice concern about the looming consequences and failure of said scheme;
3) Progressives lash out at conservatives, calling them names and accusing them of being haters of rainbows and unicorns;
4) Scheme fails;
5) Progressives blame conservatives for both the consequences and the failure of the scheme, and move on to their next great idea. Wash, rinse, repeat.
How can the cycle be broken?
I just received a package of letters from my health insurance provider. It states, among other things:
“Because of the requirements of the new laws, we can no longer offer your current Anthem policy.”
“You will need to change health benefit plans because your policy will no longer be available after January 1, 2014.”
“We have suggested a new health benefit plan for your consideration [the benefits of which are NOT yet available on our website] * * * and your new monthly premium will be [55% greater than what you are currently paying].”
“The totalitarian regime’s boot on your face is also free, btw.”
That one had me rolling.
It’s almost unbelievable to me that a person who thinks the payer of any government program should be the one(s) making more money than himself, is intelligent enough to hold a job in the first place.
It’s hard to get your head around that kind of shortsightedness that they cannot recognize the inherent problem with that expectation- especially for liberals who ostensibly believe in social programs as being good for society, where we all benefit from these “shared” responsibilities.
It’s ironic how the democrats, or the majority who identify with that label, have convinced themselves conservatives are selfish for wanting to keep what they earn, while democrats are perfectly fine thinking of themselves as caring and charitable, but unwilling to pay for anyone, in many cases not even themselves. Too bad there aren’t any candidates who can articulate the irony in a way that might penetrate the granite skulls of these enlightened, intellectually superior individuals.
Vinson’s a day late and 1000’s of dollars short, but I’m sure she’ll find a way to convince herself this can actually be blamed on Republicans.
When faced with this kind of clarity, one can make the choice to accept it and act according (embrace the paradigm shift!) or reject it and settle back into the comfort of the familiar false reality. Obots have managed to do this for 5+ years; it’s likely become reflexive.
Very seldom, yet when necessary, a dog will eat its own crap. I’ve seen it. Usually happens after the dog has dieted on grass as well. Then it harfs down a green turd.
Now listen to me. There’s something here. Something of value.
We’re the dog, full of belly disease and gut worms and the belly disease and gut worms are the progressives. And we must eat shit to get rid of them. Fortunately, the shit isn’t the usual fare. It’s horrid but doable and we know it.
Whatever it is that you must do, do it. Donate money, time, break relationships, find new ones, move, destroy, create, whatever it is, you will know because it will be just within the bounds of what you can possibly accept.
Members of the Left did notice the income distribution. They liked it. Redistributing money from the poor, Republicans, and wealthy business owners to themselves… what could be better in their eyes?
JEB, 4:47 pm — “As economic pressures heat up due to the unintended consequences of liberalism, . . . .”
Unintended, yes, in many/most cases. Unforeseeable, NO, not for anyone with his eyes and brain open and with a rudimentary appreciation of economics and actuarial mathematics.
Kyndyll: I think step #4 needs modification. While the costs and failures, of course, are blamed on anyone who was opposed to the scheme in the first place, there are always some people who benefit from any progressive scheme. Those are trumpeted endlessly.
If we want
tomorrow,
what will we
make today?
Of the slings
and arrows,
that come from
yesterday?
If you or
I quit now,
what then shall
be the now?
I see a lot of cognitive dissonance coming on for liberals. They’d like to try and blame someone else, but Republicans were unanimous in opposition to the ACA so it can’t be them.
Bottom line: you can’t argue with reality. When the sticker shock hits, liberals will (privately) revert to their self-centered ways and do what’s in their own best interests, which is paying the penalty.
The middle class has different mores than the African American community, and I don’t think they’ll just swallow the sticker shock.
All the conservatives/libertarians have to do is not be too overbearing or gloating about it and 2014 is theirs.
My long term health care (nursing home, etc.) insurance just went up 55% and I can’t help thinking that’s due in large part by Obamacare.
Obama doesn’t have a frigging clue about the cost of health care and neither do the air head liberals and uninformed dummies who elected him.
Tex,
Didn’t get the chance to welcome you back the first time, so
welcome back.
The State of Hawaii passed mandated health insurance for all employers decades ago. (HMSA and Kaiser)
Barry remembers that fondly.
It was a simpler time, but even then the law caused economically unprotected businesses to go all out as part-time staffs.
Everybody at the bottom just had to pick up two to three jobs. In the tourist trade 60 hour work weeks became common.
Because 0bamacare is a regressive poll tax on an epic scale it must pick the pockets of the middle class.
The big winners — as a class — must be the illegal immigrants.
I wouldn’t say that, Blert. Congress is using this as a gateway to controlling medical resources, to extend their longevity and ensure that Americans don’t deplete the supply of good medical resources.
Thus prices may rise for the middle class, but for the rich, their status quo care will be taken care of, as usual.
The poor will only get what the Democrat ruling class decides they get.
Ira: “I just received a package of letters from my health insurance provider. It states, among other things:
“Because of the requirements of the new laws, we can no longer offer your current Anthem policy.”
“You will need to change health benefit plans because your policy will no longer be available after January 1, 2014.”
“We have suggested a new health benefit plan for your consideration [the benefits of which are NOT yet available on our website] * * * and your new monthly premium will be [55% greater than what you are currently paying].”
That is what is happening to those who have been buying their own insurance. Almost without exception, the premiums are increasing and will increase every year as a person ages. What’s interesting to me is that the deductibles are increasing as well. Many people are going to be paying $5,000 – $10,000 out of pocket before any insurance payments kick in. And then they will pay 20-30% of those costs above the deductible. I predict that there are going to be many, especially those who are young and healthy, who chose to pay the penalty and try to bargain for cash treatment when necessary.
I just read an essay by John Mauldin, a financial guru, who has been interviewing the head of the Cleveland Clinic. (I have no link to the essay, it’s a newsletter.) The Cleveland Clinic just laid off a bunch of people because they see their income shrinking as Obamacare goes into effect. According to the essay, insurance now pays 58 cents on every billed dollar. The Cleveland Clinic expects that to go down to 38 cents on every billed dollar. It sounds like there may be some price controls built into the program or they expect more difficulty in collecting from people with large deductibles. Anyhow, that raises the possibility of less care, less quality of care, and fewer choices of care. Ahh, but every policy will cover abortion, gynecologic, and pediatric care if you are a woman, no matter your age. Just perfect, no? 🙂
Mike Says nailed it.
Liberal “Health Care Policy” means less health, and less care, at twice the price and half the liberty.
And yes, they have no problem if someone else has their Liberty trampled on. As long as it isn’t THEM.
Socialism is so easy and feels so good going down when they’re stealing from someone else besides YOU. Eventually, they steal from everybody, and the Politburo keeps their golf courses open and the dachas, and the REAL health care for themselves. Welcome to US OF Soviet America.
More bad news: in Maryland, I hear, someone who went on their exchanges says that for the Bronze plan po’ folks, there is only one ob-gyn for bronzies for the entire state.
One.
They got this off the “providers’ list.”
http://news.yahoo.com/obamacare-glitches-why-might-help-end-government-shutdown-183213058.html
Read the comments. They all share sticker shock.
Doctors are retiring in droves. They don’t want to become slave workers of the Left.
The Left’s response will probably be “why can’t you just make these people work for less pay?”
So said the tyrant to the overseers.
Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.-You know Who
See, even there, they told you he would make you work. So doctors can’t complain and they shouldn’t be Allowed to retire and allowed to not work for the State.
Excellent article, Neo. Yes, I’ve always wondered why liberals feel so noble for forcing other people to be more charitable than they are.
I wonder if anyone realizes that the doctor who is one of Obama’s health care advisor envisions a system where no one may obtain healthcare over and above the basics provided universally? In other words, you may be doing well enough financially that you assume you will just pay out of pocket to see the specialist of your choice, or to have the unsubsidized knee replacement or expensive cancer drugs. I can’t find the link right now but I’ve read the website several times. Buried in the FAQs is an explanation that everyone will have to accept the exact same care, because otherwise there would be a two-tiered system and that wouldn’t be “fair.”
Did anyone ask candidate Obama, or President Obama, about this goal? Nope.
They need to standardize the rate of consumption for the masses, since they plan on reserving the best of the best for the Ruling Class.
Had a liberal friend recently go to the emergency room where she and her spouse discovered (after getting sub-par care and moving to another hospital) that the ER staffing had been outsourced. It was staffed by foreign doctors who spent only a month at each particular hospital, which meant they were neither familiar or nor all that committed to the hospital. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of this type of cost-cutting.
During Congress’ push to get ACA enacted, CSPAN had an hour long interview with the head of Virginia Medical Center (who is also a heart surgeon). He stated that a hospital’s two biggest expenses were personnel and technology/equipment. His concern was that hospitals would cut back on investments in new equipment, which would then lead to decreased medical technological innovation.
Despite one’s health insurance, I just don’t see how anyone can escape the overall degradation of health care. While there may still be some hospitals that offer premium care for a price (and also the option of going to overseas), if our treatment and drug innovation slows down it impacts us all. Who knows – maybe other countries will take the lead and it will attract those companies and people who used to innovate here. It’s just such a waste.
@Ymarsakar
“The Left’s response will probably be “why can’t you just make these people work for less pay?””
We’ve already seen the Left’s response in California: when faced with a shortage of providers, they will dumb down the standards to the lowest possible levels…nurses acting as doctors, MAs acting as nurses, volunteers acting as MAs.
This will, of course, result in lower-quality care and some people will die as a result. The left will then try to cover up the problems, just like they do in the UK.
Even with those measures, there won’t be enough providers so there will end up being shortages and rationing. As the daily pressure on providers increases, those that stay in the system will become surly or indifferent.
We will have uncaring “care” of which the media dare not speak.
Oh and BTW, that will only be the case when your healthcare hasn’t been suspended as part of a government shutdown.
Matt_SE is exactly right: California’s AB 154 allows non-physicians to perform two kinds of abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy: by medication, and by aspiration. Disgusting.
@ 8:12 Holmes wrote: “I’ve always wondered why liberals feel so noble for forcing other people to be more charitable than they are.”
Let me offer the following:
For liberals it is always about pretense, i.e., the appearance of equality, diversity etc.. So it’s the appearance of being charitable that’s important.
In fact, charity is moral, noble and laudable when it comes from the heart, that is, when it’s voluntary. Charity from the govt is charity by taxation with the source of the money having no inpur in how it’s used. In otherwords, govt charity is charity by theft, hardly a noble cause, but to the leftist mind set, what it is doesn’t matter nearly as much as what it appears to be.
For those interested in a historical example of sustainability and consumption enforced moderation, read about the ancient medieval sumptuary laws.
You’ll seen something almost the same as now.
Have we truly Advanced as a Human Species under the Leftist care?
Jeepers…Sure does make me wish I was a California resident again. (-:
I love my nearly lifelong state, but it has collectively lost its mind and its mooring. The more of a Lib-Left Shipwreck it becomes, the more the folks vote the icebergs in. Idiotic. Illogical. Self-Destructive. Horrendous for business, large and small.
My answer to Holmes is slightly different
Why do people feel pride when they get their pets to do tricks in public?
That’s basically how the Left feels about making you pay for the poor.
The ancient warrior sages often proposed that enlightenment and wisdom came through suffering, through isolation, through meditating and fasting on a mountain with no human for 100 miles.
Why is that? Why did they focus so much on getting a person away from society, for them to learn about humans and their society. Why did they focus on suffering, on deprivation, on pain, and on what modern Americans consider “crazy stuff”?
Is it, perhaps indeed even, that they realized that humans learn nothing without suffering, without feeling the universe’s boot on their heads? That being close to other humans and human build society, corrupts one’s soul and judgment?
While there are exceptions, like those self aware enough to change themselves, many who visit here. But exceptions are merely exceptions.
As has been said before, the motivator for liberals’ actions is the need to feel good about themselves, if not morally superior. They don’t like sacrificing any more than anyone else though (if certain reports are true, even less than average).
The enabler of their schemes is magical-/double-think. They want to believe in multiple ideas simultaneously, and many of those ideas are contradictory. The solution is to hold onto the most superficial aspects of the ideas while refusing to play them out to their logical conclusions.
They are unwilling to link cause and effect.
The great thing about “sticker shock” is that it is a huge, unmistakable problem. When this effect is shown to be the opposite of what they were (irrationally) expecting, some double-thinkers will be compelled to find another explanation.
It will be convenient for them to accept the ready-made (predictive, in fact) explanations given by the conservatives, because ready-made is easy and easy is holy.
Some will also retreat further into delusion. Alas, these people were already lost to common sense and cannot be saved…but you gotta break some eggs to un-make an omelet.
@Ymarsakar
I agree with the suffering part, and to a lesser extent the isolation-from-the-crazy-masses part. But you eventually have to rejoin the world.
To quote from one of my favorite movies, “It’s easy to be a holy man on top of a mountain.”
@11:32 Mat_SE wrote:
I agree. Let us note that this is the “reasoning” process of a child. Likewise, I have often compared the leftist mentality to the un-matured reasoning of an adolescent.
Ymarsaker,
So you’re saying that the left’s motivating ethos is “stupid pet tricks”? Sounds about right to me!
Linking cause and effect has become, for way too many, a lost ability. It used to be that consequences pretty much matched your actions . . . if you were a crappy ball player you got picked last . . . but that’s all upside down now.
IMO, what we are seeing happening in America is, en masse and very slowly, cause and effect slowly coming back into focus. Not because anyone wants it, but because our past foolishness guarentees it.
M Williams worte (@1:20):
“. . . what we are seeing happening in America is, en masse and very slowly, cause and effect slowly coming back into focus.”
IMO this is a very reasonable statement and ties in quite well with Walter Russell Mead’s series on the disappearance of the “Blue Social Model.” We have been conditioned by 100 yrs of Progressivism to see increasing socialism as a natural evolution. If in fact we look at it historically, it is a cultural aberration based almost completely on Marx’s reaction to the 19th century industrial complex. As that 19th century complex disappears in the U.S. any underlying justification for socialism weakens and disappears with it (that’s assuming the premise was valid in the first place).
What’s left is a hollowed-out shell of a cultural movement calling for social programs as though this were 1910. Some examples: Unions and a minimum wage because workers are disadvantaged by big corporations (tell that to the millionaires that Apple and Microsoft created in the last 20 years); a welfare state to fight poverty when those considered “poor’ have big-screen TVs, cell phones, air conditioning, and oftentimes even cars; gender legislation when studies show that wage discrimination among genders is virtually non-extant; the rending of clothes over court decisions on the Voter Registration Act as though Bull Connor (a Dem, BTW) was still turning fire hoses and German shephards loose on minorities; and the list goes on.
There’s a lot of MSM blowback in calling Obama a socialist, but I honestly don’t see how Obamacare is anything but. We’re talking about forcing all Americans to pay for the health insurance in order to ensure the millions who do not already have it. We’re also using subsidies to make it cheaper for the “poor” than it is for the rest of us. That IS socialism. The only objection anyone can seriously raise to calling it socialism is that, in this case, it “only” applies to health care and not, say, buying a car.
LIberals and low-information voters generally like the idea of socialism because (a) they always imagine they will come out ahead and (b) they tend not to believe in unintended consequences. They think the government can decide to do anything and it won’t affect anything else. For example, they think the government can pour billions of dollars into subsidizing college tuition and it won’t increase the cost of tuition. The government can raise the minimum wage and it won’t increase unemployment.
RigelDog…Dr. Rich at the covertrationing blog has been on that for a while. Whether they can make that stick for the upper middle class (welfare tourism anyone) remains to be seen.
Only somewhat tongue-in-cheek do I keep suggesting to some of the local Indian tribe (Tulalip’s…hi JJ) that they open a hospital/medical center on reservation (sovereign) land. Unlike many tribes, they’re right off I-5 in the northern suburbs of a major metro area…easy access. Right next to the hotel/casino for rehabilitation purposes would be best.
@ Ymarsakar,
YOu are gloomier than I am but I think you are right about suffering. The tragedy is watching preventable suffering in slow motion.
Causing it is a sin. Obama’s. All liberals. All Dem vters are guilty. Period. They will get what they deserve in the end, but good people will get what they deserve top and that is too bad.
For me, I am down to praying to be able to pray and fast. Prayer and fasting, you are right, is a tried and true methodology of the ages.
Today more than anything America needs prayer. We really do. We are humbled and on our knees and it is juts beginning with this guy.
He is going to take us to default and manufacture a world economic crisis so he never has to actually leave the White House. He is Julius Caesar. He is Napoleon. I have no idea whether there will be an America when he is done, or when he will be done.
Prayer and fasting.
RigelDog,
No doubt the left would like to eliminate payment for care above a standard amount in the name of fairness, but I don’t think that is part of Obamacare as passed. Note this is really Reidcare, i.e., the package they were able to pass through the Senate.
RigelDog: “Buried in the FAQs is an explanation that everyone will have to accept the exact same care, because otherwise there would be a two-tiered system and that wouldn’t be “fair.”
Unless they try to stop the wealthy from leaving the country, there WILL be a two tiered system. People can fly to Singapore and get first class, inexpensive surgeries done right now. How long will it be before doctors move clinics to Mexico or various Caribbean destinations that will cater to the well to do. They can’t keep illegal aliens out, I don’t know how they expect to keep citizens from traveling for their health care.
I believe the sticker shock is just beginning. Wait until the people with Medicare Advantage get their bills. The corporations that have exemptions now will be giving the bad news to their employees sometime in 2014. IMO, it’s going to get worse and is going to make a very nice campaign issue for 2014.
Mike,
To clarify somethings, I’m not so much gloomy or pessimistic, as I’ve had a long time to deal with imagining the unimaginable and figuring out my feelings.
What many people are feeling with Obama, thinking it could not go any worse, than being surprised, wasn’t something that delayed my journey.
What many people are realizing now, I started to realize in 2006-08. Not because of Obama or McCain, though they helped, but because of the Leftist alliance and their operations, both hidden and known.
So that’s how many years from then to now that I’ve had to figure out what’s really going on and what I should feel about it?
People at this moment may be confused, tired, angry, passionate, or some other way distracted, so they may think as I do because they haven’t traveled the same road as I have. My journey, concerning the Leftist alliance as it currently is, started a few years ahead of some others.
If you or anyone else had some additional years to make adjustments based on your expectations and your comprehension of evil, perhaps you would think in a similar vein to me. Though that’s not certain.
–so they may NOT think as I do–
The good old missing 1-3 letters that completely reverses my meaning again.
Ok, I found the links to the national health plan organization I know was linked to Obamacare: Physicians for a National Health Program.
Check out the FAQ for lots of nasty stuff, including the casually-tossed in assertion that people will not be entitled to purchase better health care: http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-faq#buy_healthcare
I think info on another physician, who was even more closely tied to Obama, was my original lead on this story but here’s a blurb from the website re at least one doctor involved in designing Obamacare:
“Dr. Grumbach has served as a campaign surrogate and member of the health policy advisory committee for the Barack Obama presidential campaign, an advisor to President-Elect Obama’s health transition team, and an advisor to Congressional Committees and government agencies on primary care and health reform. He is a founding member of the California Physicians Alliance, which is now the California Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. “
Peons, serfs, and slaves are not allowed to purchase the clothing of royalty. That is natural.
T said (October 8th, 2013 at 10:47 am)
“… For liberals it is always about pretense, i.e., the appearance of equality, diversity etc.. So it’s the appearance of being charitable that’s important. ”
– – – – – – –
Aha, that rings a little bell in my head. I keep seeing ways in which The Left is SOOOOO similar to Islam, and this is another: the Honor/ Shame culture(*). “I must BE SEEN AS being noble, compassionate, wise, caring…” (As opposed to the Guilt/ Innocence culture which is more closely tied to Western Civ and its Judeo-Christian roots: “I must BE / BECOME more noble, compassionate, etc.”)
I have to mull this over a bit more. I think that somewhere in this idea is the explanation of why The Left doesn’t learn from its failures. You’d think that “how my peers see me” would be adversely affected by grandiose ideas that never work, or scandals of various intensities… but I don’t see much evidence of “shame” from The Left. Hmm. But I’m SURE that The Left rewards its believers for “appearance” and “posturing”, while (I believe) the Right judges and rewards ITS believers based on “efficacy” and “results”.
I know that’s about as clear as mud. Sigh. But I keep feeling “harmonic vibrations” between the Left and Islam; and I’m trying to make sense of how both sets of True Believers can be so anti-West in so many similar ways, when they come from such different cultural backgrounds. It seems like we’re engaged in a “war of cultures” on TWO fronts, against TWO different enemies, and we risk annihilation from both sides. Right now we –“Western Civ”– are LOSING the battle for hearts and minds across what was once referred to as “Christendom”. I’m hoping that whatever arguments and exhortations we can successfully array against one set of Totalitarian ideas will also be effective against the OTHER set of Totalitarian ideas.
(*) I believe Dr. Sanity still has her many excellent posts regarding the pathologies of Islam up at her site – drsanity.blogspot.com )
But I keep feeling “harmonic vibrations” between the Left and Islam; and I’m trying to make sense of how both sets of True Believers can be so anti-West in so many similar ways, when they come from such different cultural backgrounds.
One of the primary reasons Islam hates the West is because it fears females and when they no longer control sexuality. So Hollywood and feminism are what they consider mortal threats to their culture, which they are correct on. Their culture will die or change if ever such concepts took root over there.
The ones controlling such organs here in the US are the Left. So Islam hates the US because of the Left and is also allied with the Left because the Left is also trying to destroy the US and Western culture.
They have decided to figure out who the New Ruler is after the Old Regime has passed.
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